


The Transitive

by allmilhouse



Category: The Fugitive (TV)
Genre: Character Study, No Dialogue, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27261223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmilhouse/pseuds/allmilhouse
Summary: Transitive (adj)1. Making a transit or passage2. Characterized by, or involving transition3. Having the property that if an element x is related to y and y is related to z, then x is necessarily related to z.
Kudos: 2





	The Transitive

**Author's Note:**

> definitions from dictionary.com and wiktionary.org  
> intro and epilog best read in a dramatic William Conrad voice  
> this whole thing is the fic equivalent of the “I’ve connected the two dots” “You haven’t connected shit” meme

As a hunted man, he only exists in response to his pursuer. Without the daunting shadow of Stafford PD Lt. Phil Gerard looming over him, he would not be where he is now. His identity as a fugitive exists only because the state would not let him walk away a free man, despite his innocence. 

And he's only running because he's also chasing. Chasing a ghost of hope, the one thing that could possibly prove his innocence. The one-armed man he saw running away from his house the night of the murder. It might be nothing, it might be everything, and either way Richard Kimble was determined to find out. 

**ACT I**

It all started- and ended- with a fight. The last time Richard saw his wife alive was in the middle of an argument, when he left to go drive around for a bit, to clear his head.

It bothered him, the way Helen was so adamant that she couldn't love an adopted child. For one thing it was cruel, and he had never known Helen to be anything less than warm and caring. She had cared so much for Richard, and had promised him repeatedly that she didn't mind that he could never be a father in that way. 

They’d both wanted a family, and Richard had told her about some of their options. He learned quite a bit about family planning while interning at the hospital, about how couples who tried for years to have a baby would go to a clinic, or solicit help from a friend-

He tried broaching the idea of adoption, of course, since it seemed like the easiest solution. Years ago, back before they were married, and she had been more noncommittal then, rather than outright outraged. But they were younger then, swept up in love and not really thinking too hard about the future. He still had a few years before graduating, and Helen didn't want to have a student husband and a baby at the same time anyway. 

When he started up his practice at the hospital, and really got the chance to spend his days caring for children, that's when he knew- he really wanted to have a family. He'd seen enough families come through his office door and knew by now that biology didn't determine fatherhood- it was all in a man's character. 

It had all been explained to him when he first started pursuing manhood, in his later teens. About what it would mean for his body, and what it would do to his chances of becoming a parent later on. Adoption was mentioned frequently, and it wasn’t exactly an unappealing idea. There were always children in need of love in this world, and Richard would be happy to care for any of them. He found it frustrating that Helen didn't agree, but then she had less time to become accustomed to the idea.

Of course the idea had always been at the back of his mind. Growing up, relegated to the caregiver side of things with his sister, he figured he would grow up to be a good spouse and have a few kids and maintain a nice home, and that was all. That idea never did sit right with him, and at the time he hadn't been able to articulate why. 

Thankfully he finally found the words, and things turned out differently. By the time he was legally rechristened Richard Kimble, he wanted to enroll in college, and become a doctor just like his father. He’d learned so much from his own medical journey, and wanted to offer help and support like the kind he had received. 

**ACT II**

He does find some people like him. Living in the margins, in the flophouses or cheap hotels, or catching the late bus out of town, no matter which way. There's not much he can do, after losing his medical licence, but he tells them names. Names of which drugs will help, if they can find an obliging doctor or pharmacist, or names of his former colleagues who specialized in that sort of thing. Names of clinics around the country, or of enclaves he'd heard of- camps well off the beaten path, where people can live as they were meant to. 

Advice, sympathy, understanding- that's about all he's able to offer these days, with a small crooked smile, and while they're mulling it over, he sneaks away, gone in the blink of an eye, onto the train, onto the next town. 

It was comforting in a way, being able to slip into so many roles and so many aliases, and not raising too many questions. Some days when he’s not running for his life and has a moment or two to reflect, he’ll smile about it. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he could blend in so convincingly in such masculine areas, hopping on the backs of trucks or working in the fields like one of the guys. 

He wasn't always the chameleon though. He was constantly being accused of being a college boy working blue collar jobs, which was true, but also not the source of his manners. 

The first time he'd been in a real fistfight was about a month after his escape. He'd headed west, and found a job on the docks up in Seattle. He didn't start it, but he sure as hell finished it, just to show the other guys he wasn't going to be pushed around. Heading back to his room that night, he felt so proud rubbing his sore jaw, but the landlady took one look at his blackened eye and told him in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't have any trouble, and that was the end of that. 

Since then he’d try to make even less of an impression, fly under the radar, and take his lumps if it meant getting the chance to move on and live another day. But it wasn’t all bad. Having the opportunity to try out every name under the sun was appreciated, although it did confirm how much he enjoyed his old one. 

Richard Kimble, MD. He missed the reassuring feeling he got staring at his diploma on the wall of his office, telling the whole world who he was and what he did. 

But then, the whole world thinks him guilty of the one thing he didn't do. He knew the statistics. Nine times out of ten, if you find a murdered woman, the man she was closest to killed her. Richard always had to be the outlier though. 

**ACT III**

If Gerard knew, he didn’t say anything. Richard was sure it would have been mentioned in his medical file, when he was first arrested before the trial. He figured it wasn’t that helpful to his capture. He never took his shirt off if he could help it, and mentioning the war was an easy way to explain away the scars. Ironically this helped him in some ways. Spending much of the past two decades always shrugging off invasive questions with a half-smile, and chuckle, and some noncommittal words, wrapped around just enough of the truth to avoid getting caught in a web of lies. 

Not that he considers his childhood a lie, but it did seem to prepare him for a life on the road. That first time he dyed his hair, it reminded him of the first time he got his hair cut short. He spent a while looking in the mirror, getting used to his new look, and hoping no one would recognize him now. 

But they always seemed to. Unlike the one-armed man, who Richard had only glimpsed that night, and then once again in Chicago. Somehow he was able to stay underground, while Richard had to keep running, always on the verge of being identified. He’d heard a few police officers mention it once, while he was in a station sweating bullets trying to keep them from casting a wayward glance to his old wanted poster hanging on the far wall. His description was so nondescript- about six feet, mid thirties, dark hair- it could fit just about anybody. But he was the one always stopped by police, and the one-armed man was never caught, let alone seen. 

That was the main reason he never left the country. A few women along the way had tried to get him to come along with them, to some beautiful foreign country where extradition wasn’t an option. They nearly tempted him too. He’d been in more than a few airports, still looking over his shoulder at the security, or a uniformed cop surveying the area, when he’d regain his nerve. 

He wanted to be a free man again. To be able to walk down the street with his head held high. To be able to resume his practice, to resume what was left of his old life. He still hadn’t ruled out remarrying, or maybe raising a child. If anything, his time on the road only intensified that need. It seemed like any time he was truly in a jam, a child was involved, and he always seemed to put their wellbeing ahead of his own, even with the threat of capture and death hanging over his head. Even the time he’d gotten mixed up with Gerard’s own son, with every fibre of his being telling him to run, he stayed, and waited until he could be sure of the boy’s safety. 

He knew he had it in him to be a good father- he knew it because he’d already become a good man. Now he just needed the chance to prove it. 

**ACT IV**

Proof without evidence is hard, despite what happened at his trial. Apparently having the neighbor testify she heard fighting once is enough to get a man sent to the gas chamber, but having a lady swear she saw a one-armed man isn’t enough to save that same life. 

But Richard Kimble has never been a man easily deterred. It took him nearly twenty years to become the man he was destined to be, and he took solace in that fact. Since it took him so long to obtain that name in the first place, then it stood to reason he would fight like hell to clear it.

It’s not as hard to stay hopeful as he thought it would be. The first few years were definitely rough, but after a while, he started to notice a pattern. He’d always checked the news for reports of one-armed men, and while they never seemed to pan out, he often noticed Gerard there too. The lieutenant had testified at the trial that he’d interrogated several one-armed men, trying to substantiate Richard’s claim. But the fact that he was still trying, despite also hunting Richard to the ends of the earth seemed to say more about Gerard’s doubts than Richard’s presumed guilt. 

If only he could just find the man. He wasn’t a blind optimist- he knew that locating the one-armed man wouldn’t solve every problem. It couldn’t undo the past damage, it couldn’t turn back the clock. But if he could prove his innocence, and get a chance to live his life again, and make the most of what time he had left, instead of being mired in an unsustainable limbo.

Always on the run, perpetually threatened. Just waiting for one person to notice him, or to accidentally make one wrong move, and be clocked by a stranger, and have to take off again, to try again in a new town, with a new name. Searching for any trace of that one-armed man, all while not leaving a trace of himself for Gerard to stumble upon. A life on everyone else’s terms except his own.

**EPILOG**

The day he was born, the state misidentified Richard, and it took him nearly twenty years to correct that mistake. On the day of his trial, the state tendered an incorrect verdict, sentencing him to death. He’s still working to right that wrong, to prove his innocence and to once again become respected Dr. Richard Kimble. But for now he focuses on the task at hand, and continues his life as _The Fugitive_.


End file.
